gxyat

[Arlindo da Silva]

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 10:05 AM, Timlin, Michael <mtimlin at illinois.edu>wrote:

>  Arlindo,
>
>
>
> We are running grads 2.0a3 (but not opengrads) and I would love to be able
> to use gxyat.  The improved fonts would be great.
>
>
>
> Is there anyway to use it in grads as a direct replacement for printim?
>
Yes, you may be able to write a "printim.gs" script which saves a metafile
and uses gxyat with a "!".  Gxyat syntax is similar but not identical to
printim. Performance. of course, is much better with the "gxyat" extension
which does not involve writing any metafile.

Can I use the stand alone gxyat with regular grads meta files?
>

Yes.


> Where can I download the stand alone version?
>
Unfortunately, you need to download the full opengrads bundle and grab the
"gxyat" executable from the bin/ directory. We do not provide a separate
download at this time. (If it complains about missing .so libraries, see the
troubleshooting section of the INSTALL file for a simple fix. )

What all is involved with opengrads installation?
>

It is trivial. Untar it, and set your path. That is it, nothing else to set,
or extra files to download. More info here:


http://opengrads.org/wiki/index.php?title=Installing_the_OpenGrADS_Bundle

> Would it break anything that is currently working in grads or is it a
> superset of grads?
>
It is a superset. As a rule, if you do not invoke the extensions, you get
the regular GrADS from COLA. The main philosophy of the OpenGrADS project is
to complement the work of Jennifer and Brian at COLA . There is no
incompatibility that I am aware of.

Having said that, I need to mention that we have different builds, based on
slightly different baselibs. There is only OpenGrADS executable (called
"grads") which can read all the regular GrADS formats, including OPeNDAP
URLs; there is no separate "gradsdap".  It can also read NetCDF-4/HDF-5
datasets, a feature that will be available in an upcoming COLA release as
Jennifer mentioned recently. All OpenGrADS builds also enable the Athena GUI
and ships with sample GUI scripts. If you type "nomads" from the Contents/
directory you a browser for real time GFS, NAM, RUC and Wave forecasts from
NCEP, give it a try.

> Does it keep up with the grads releases in a timely manner?
>
On a best effort basis, we try to closely follow COLA releases. The latest
version (v2.0.a7.oga.3) is caught up with COLA. However, OpenGrADS is
carried out by volunteers, and sometimes other pressing deadlines may cause
a new release to lag COLA's release by a few weeks. But usually we try to
get it out in a week or two.

> I don’t want to be a bother to the sys admin who will have to do these
> updates if it will be more complicated or if he’ll have to keep two versions
> of grads up and running.
>
  You can always download a bundle tarball and test drive it from your home
directory.

  Cheers!

     Arlindo

-- 
Arlindo da Silva
dasilva at alum.mit.edu
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